Congestion In Cities Research Articles

Restriction Analysis of Transport Policy for Bridges Using the Trajectory Data

Roads are becoming increasingly congested with continuous rise in the number of vehicles. Restriction policies are selected to alleviate congestion in many cities. However, conclusions regarding the substantial effects of restriction policies have not been fully demonstrated. This study primarily aims to demonstrate whether traffic restrictions can control the driving habits of people to alleviate traffic pressure. Furthermore, this study investigates the effect on the traffic on the premise of a normalized restriction policy. Data were collected by bayonet systems in Ningbo. Results showed that vehicles restricted by the restriction policy only accounted for approximately 13%. Most drivers bypass restricted roads to avoid restrictions. The method proposed can effectively amend the trajectory deviation caused by the inaccuracy from the bayonet. Based on the results, some suggestions about the policy of restrictions were discussed.

Recent advances in traffic optimisation: systematic literature review of modern models, methods and algorithms

Over the past few decades, the increasing number of vehicles and imperfect road traffic management have been sources of congestion in cities and reasons for deteriorating health of its inhabitants. With the help of computer simulations, transport engineers optimise and improve the capacity of city streets. However, with an enormous number of possible simulation types, it is difficult to grasp valuable, innovative solutions which are of the greatest value to city citizens. In this work, the authors expose various problems within this area having reviewed and analysed over 130 papers selected out of 1200 works in the field of urban simulations. The study describes the selection process of important papers and highlights characteristics of microsimulations, macrosimulations, computation optimisations and other approaches found in the literature which are especially useful and should be further built on in the future. They present and compare results provided in reviewed works in terms of throughput improvement, queue, waiting and travel time reduction, vehicle speed increase, speed-ups as well as assumed simulation parameters. Finally, they focus on research gaps, such as a small number of works considering crisis simulations, few real-world scale simulations as well as on software architectural changes and low-level optimizations.

Четыре колеса апокалипсиса: причины автомобильных пробок в крупных городах мира

Четыре колеса апокалипсиса: причины автомобильных пробок в крупных городах мира

Dealing with Green Gentrification and Vertical Green-Related Urban Well-Being: A Contextual-Based Design Framework

Urbanization and climate change have generated ever-increased pressure to the ecosystem, bringing critical resilience challenges to densely congested cities. The resulted displaced and encroached habitat in need of recuperation demands a comprehensive overhaul to the customary urban planning practices; further, the deteriorating public health state of urban residents calls for strategies in dealing with green deprivation and gentrification issues. Frequently, urban greening strategies are envisaged at a macro-scale on a dedicated horizontal track of land, rendering local implementation in a densely built neighborhood a challenged undertaking. Communities lacking green and land resources could promote vertical greening to enable and enhance social and psychological well-being. This study ascertains that vertical greenery closest to the inhabitants could be allocated on a building facade. It can contribute to a more sustainable ecology. The article presents the systemic design approach to urban vertical greening thinking and its role in well-being provision. We propose an interdisciplinary multicriteria contextual-based scalable framework to assess vertical green infrastructure; the prototype requires an innovative approach to balance architecture, human needs, and the local environment. The vertical greening application provides an alternative paradigm in the design implementation for urban green. We proposed the locality and place to be incorporated into the vertical greening design framework. The research concludes the three-tiered consideration framework resulted: (1) in line with the human-habitat ecosystem, the local environment-social dimension is explored; (2) the well-being criteria encourage the design practice’s support for localized driven community vitality; (3) the design paradigm requires integration with the increasing demand for green space as well as taking into account the impact of severe climate; and (4) the framework should achieve the strengthening of health and well-being of the community.

Quality indicator of the smart city transportation and logistics system

Subject. The article considers functioning and development of process flows of transportation and logistics system of a smart city. Objectives. The study identifies factors and dependencies of the quality of human life on the organization and management of stream processes. Methods. I perform a comparative analysis of previous studies, taking into account the uniquely designed results, and the econometric analysis. Results. The study builds multiple regression models that are associated with stream processes, highlights interdependent indicators of temporary traffic and pollution that affect the indicator of life quality. However, the identified congestion indicator enables to predict the time spent in traffic jams per year for all participants of stream processes. Conclusions. The introduction of modern intelligent transportation systems as a component of the transportation and logistics system of a smart city does not fully solve the problems of congestion in cities at the current rate of urbanization and motorization. A viable solution is to develop cooperative and autonomous intelligent transportation systems based on the logistics approach. This will ensure control over congestion, the reduction of which will contribute to improving the life quality of people in urban areas.

LAND USE DEVELOPMENT AND RIDERSHIP AT KELANA JAYA LRT LINE, MALAYSIA

Urbanisation has led to increased traffic use and congestion in various cities around the world. Various policies and strategies have been implemented to address the issue. One of the most popular strategies is the development of transit system, including mass rapid transit (MRT) and light rapid transit (LRT). To ensure the success of the transit system, the concept of Transit Oriented Development, in which land uses around the stations that are developed for urban development has been implemented. This paper evaluates a possible relationship between land uses around the station and ridership in selected stations along the Kelana Jaya LRT line in the Kuala Lumpur metropolitan area, Malaysia. The land uses around the station were calculated using Land Use and Public Transport Accessibility Index (LUPTAI). The research did not conclusively find a strong relationship between LUPTAI and ridership. This was perhaps due to the fact that almost all stations had been developed for urban land uses, such as commercial, residential and public facilities, thus giving all stations almost the same index figures. It is hope that a more detailed index that accounts for type and mixture of development on land, as well as the density for residential areas would probably give a better index result, as well as perhaps a stronger relationship with ridership figures.

The impact of fare-free public transport on travel behavior: Evidence from a randomized controlled trial

Fare-free public transportation has recently gained attention from policymakers and has been proposed as a measure to reduce pollution and road congestion in several cities around the world. We investigate the impact of fare-free public transport on travel behavior by randomly assigning a pass to workers in Santiago (Chile). The pass allowed them unlimited travel for two weeks, as opposed to paying the regular fare of approximately US$ 1 per trip. The main impact of fare-free public transport is an increase in overall travel of 12%. We also find a 23% increase in the total number of trips made during off-peak periods that is explained in equal shares by increases in public transport and non-motorized trips. Two-thirds of the aggregate effect on off-peak travel occurs during weekday off-peak periods and is mostly due to a 28% increase in trips made by public transport. We find no evidence of mode or period substitution and that the effect on public transport trips is entirely explained by trips that use the subway and by individuals who live within one km. from a station.

Customized bus route design with pickup and delivery and time windows: Model, case study and comparative analysis

The customized bus (CB) is an emerging type of public transportation system, which not only provides a flexible and reliable demand-responsive service, but also reduces the usage of private car to alleviate traffic congestion in metropolitan cities. The customized bus route design problem (CBRDP) is a crucial procedure in the CB service system designing. In this work, we develop a new type of problem scenario: Multi-Trip Multi-Pickup and Delivery Problem with Time Windows, to describe CBRDP by simultaneously optimizing the operating cost and passenger profit, where excess travel time is introduced to estimate passenger extra cost compared with taxi service, and each vehicle is allowed to perform multiple trips for operational cost savings. To solve this problem, a constructive two-stage heuristic algorithm is presented to obtain the Pareto solution. Taking a benchmark problem and Beijing commuting corridor as case studies, we calculate and compare the monetary and travel costs of CB with other travel modes, and quantitatively confirm that the CB can be a cost-effective choice for passengers.

Semi-Supervised City-Wide Parking Availability Prediction via Hierarchical Recurrent Graph Neural Network

The ability to predict city-wide parking availability is crucial for the successful development of Parking Guidance and Information (PGI) systems. The effective prediction of city-wide parking availability can boost parking efficiency, improve urban planning, and ultimately alleviate city congestion. However, it is a non-trivial task for city-wide parking availability prediction because of three major challenges: 1) the non-euclidean spatial autocorrelation among parking lots, 2) the dynamic temporal autocorrelation inside of and between parking lots, and 3) the scarcity of information about real-time parking availability obtained from real-time sensors (e.g., camera, ultrasonic sensor, and bluetooth sensor). To this end, we propose a <italic xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"><u>S</u>emi-supervised <u>H</u>ier<u>a</u>rchical <u>Re</u>current Graph Neural Network-<u>X</u></i> ( <sc xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">SHARE-X</small> ) to predict parking availability of each parking lot within a city. Specifically, we first propose a hierarchical graph convolution module to model the non-euclidean spatial autocorrelation among parking lots. Along this line, a contextual graph convolution block and a multi-resolution soft clustering graph convolution block are respectively proposed to capture local and global spatial dependencies between parking lots. Moreover, we devise a hierarchical attentive recurrent network module to incorporate both short and long-term dynamic temporal dependencies of parking lots. Additionally, a parking availability approximation module is introduced to estimate missing real-time parking availabilities from both spatial and temporal domains. Finally, experiments on two real-world datasets demonstrate that <sc xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">SHARE-X</small> outperforms eight state-of-the-art baselines in parking availability prediction.

Negative Spillovers of New Technologies: The Unequal Burden of Congestion Created by Autonomous Vehicles

Autonomous vehicle (AV) technologies lower the private cost of driving, leading to induced demand for road use at peak times. Because adoption is likely to skew towards higher-income commuters, we show that the congestion externalities exacerbated by adoption are likely to be experienced disproportionately by lower-income drivers. Unless proactive policies like congestion pricing or improved access to public transit or ride-share are simultaneously implemented, autonomous vehicles are likely to make lower-income commuters actively worse off in congested cities where many higher-income commuters currently take public transit.

Model calibration to simulate driving recommendations for traffic flow optimization in oversaturated city traffic

Long queues at signals cause fuel-consuming stop-and-go traffic. Empirical measurements have shown that driving behaviour can have an important impact on queue length and thus on the occurrence of stop and go traffic. This led to the question of whether even a few vehicles can have a measurable influence on the traffic situation in congested city traffic. In this work we use a complete microscopic spatiotemporal measurement of congested city traffic at a signal to i) calibrate a both longitudinal and latitudinal driving model and then to ii) examine how changes in single vehicle's driving behaviour could improve the situation. The model calibration is realized using a genetic algorithm. In this way, a realistic heterogeneous traffic scenario that has similar properties as empirical traffic could be simulated. We then show that already changing the behaviour of a single vehicle per traffic light cycle can significantly reduce the number of vehicles waiting in queues.

Parking versus Congestion Pricing: Comparative Analysis

This paper through comparative analysis of parking charge and congestion pricing features, aims to highlight their possibilities and identify limitations, and thus to encourage transport policy makers to implement them. Both policies can tackle with negative consequences of traffic, such as pollution, noise, accidents, etc. But they still differ in a way they act on car users. Analysis of this similarities and differences will be main task of this paper. The results of analysis can be useful for better understanding of effects of both policies when selecting measures that can be used by decision makers in solving congestion in cities.

Study on the Effect different materials in Traffic signal pole using numerical simulation approach

Traffic signal poles play a role of mitigating traffic congestions in cities. It slender structure which is usually characteristics with high deformation. It is exposed to load, various environmental factor and natural hazards. The aspiration of modal analysis in structure mechanics is to negotiate the natural frequency of an object or structure in times of free vibration. Conventional poles are replaced with I and T section by applying various material such as structural steel (SS), stainless steel (STS) and grey cast iron (CI). By predicting the ultimate section with low deformation. The ultimate material is endowed and fracture behaviour is prompt, substitute crack is inserted in the maximum stress spot and life cycle of the ultimate material section is deliberate.

An exploratory evaluation of urban street networks for last mile distribution

The increasing congestion of cities together with the unprecedented growth rate of e-commerce has drawn a lot of attention to the challenges of last mile distribution in urban areas. In this context and motivated by the recent ample availability of geospatial data related to urban street networks lately, in this paper we propose an approach that allows to identify how the street network within a given urban area may affect last mile distribution in terms of travel distances, travel times and topography. The approach we have devised is simple, generic and does not depend on field data collection or restricted-access data (such as satellite images, commercial databases, etc.), which can be either too expensive for larger areas or simply unavailable. We also show how maps can be built to represent such measures in an intuitive manner that allows the visual comparison of different areas and cities. Its practical utilization is demonstrated by a case study comprising busy central areas of six large cities in three different continents: Latin America, United States and Europe. The results and insights we present can help different stakeholders, from carriers to local authorities understand the difficulties of a new delivery operation as well as identify more critical areas that may require more attention or some intervention.

Toward a Type-based Analysis of Road Networks

Road networks are major influential factors in the development of any nation. Due to different factors involved in their evolution, road networks exhibit complex structures, which result in problems such as inefficient traffic patterns, congestion, and environmental pollution. The existing metrics of road network analysis are found to be inadequate to reveal the complexity of networks that contributes to such problems. Therefore, we propose a new dimension for the road network analysis using road-types to understand such problems and analyze 57 cities from eight regions around the world: (i) India, (ii) North America, (iii) South America, (iv) Europe, (v) Asia, (vi) China, (vii) Japan, and (viii) Oceania. We define four new metrics: (i) Link Type Distribution , (ii) Link Type Demand , (iii) Preference Cost , and (iv) Type Closeness , for measuring the influence of road-types in the cities concerned. Link type distribution computes the share of each road-type in shortest paths while link type demand measures the type distribution considering the users’ preference of road-types. The metric preference cost is defined to measure the additional cost users incur on choosing higher-quality roads and type closeness computes the minimum distance a user needs to travel to reach the preferred road-type. Our analysis shows that, in cities of India, Europe, Asia, China, and Oceania, the primary, secondary, and tertiary roads play a crucial role in the shortest paths in terms of link type distribution as well as link type demand. Also, the involvement of secondary road-type is an important feature among cities from all regions except Japan, where the distribution and demand concentrated in tertiary as well as unclassified types. Cities in North and South American regions provide more importance to residential roads besides the secondary type. In addition to distribution and demand, our analysis shows that the primary, secondary, and tertiary road-types with higher demands suffer from link type deficits while the least demanded types are offered with link type surpluses, which explains one of the reasons for inefficient traffic patterns in congested cities. As far as the additional cost incurred for higher-quality roads is concerned, cities in India and USA provide least preference cost while Chinese and South American cities incur high costs. Among the 57 road networks concerned, Japan shows uniqueness in terms of the proposed metrics due to their inclusion of tertiary and unclassified roads.

Estimation of traffic density from drone-based delivery in very low level urban airspace

Driven by rising consumer demand, interest is growing in the application of autonomous unmanned aerial vehicles (drones) for the last-mile delivery of small express packages and fast-food meals in cities. To be realised, this would require the Very Low Level (VLL) urban airspace to be able to cope with high traffic densities of commercial delivery drones. The potential benefits of such novel drone-based applications are a reduction of traffic congestion in cities, lower greenhouse gas emissions and more efficient transportation operations. To help realise this concept, programs such as U-Space, the unmanned traffic management system for Europe, are developing important services such as deconfliction management and dynamic capacity management. However, for several of these services, design choices will depend on how, and how extensive they will be used. It therefore becomes important to estimate how many delivery drones would operate in a typical city. This paper aims to provide an estimate by establishing a framework to determine the traffic demand for express drone-based package delivery of five European countries. In addition, a detailed case-study is presented for determining traffic density of express package drone delivery for Paris metropolitan area in order to assess the feasibility from a user's perspective. The paper also discusses the potential of fast-food meal delivery drones compared to traditional delivery modes for Paris. Results suggest that hourly traffic densities culminating from express package and fast-food meal delivery drones will exceed today's global commercial aircraft traffic of 10,000 per day by more than six-fold for just one potential metropolitan city.

Shifting gears on sustainable transport transitions: Stakeholder perspectives on e-bikes in Toronto, Canada

Car-centric transportation systems are widely regarded as unsustainable. E-bikes are an emerging technology with potential to strengthen sustainability transitions. Little is known about the role of governance stakeholders in shaping e-bike technology uptake/rejection. This qualitative study draws upon theories of socio-technical transitions, disruptive technology and strategic niche management to interrogate transportation governance stakeholders’ perceptions towards e-bikes and related prospects or barriers to enhancing sustainability in Canada’s most populated, congested city. E-bikes possess niche benefits that help encourage socio-technical shift away from cars. Yet their greatest potential in strengthening transition pathways may be their ability to enhance seamless, multi-modal transportation through incorporation into transit hubs and shared mobility systems. E-bikes also pose negative disruptions that undermine their uptake. The range of models on the market warrant greater regulatory distinction according to unique characteristics and hazards. E-bike governance requires further coordination, and decision-makers need more data on usage patterns and modal displacement.

Optimization of Logistics Services in Vietnam Through LOGIVAN Application

Logistics is a type of service that plays an important role in promoting the country's economic growth. In addition, it is also of great significance to the transport sector in Vietnam in dealing with the challenges of traffic congestion in large cities. In Vietnam today, logistics services are growing. However, there is one major limitation that still exists, that is freight costs are still high. This does not meet the best requirements of customers. There are many reasons for this problem, one of the reasons is that trucks only carry one-way cargo, but there are no goods to ship backwards. The paper studies the application of LOGIVAN smart transport model in developing Logistics services in Vietnam today. Research results show that LOGIVAN transport model is the optimal model in solving the problem of empty cars in the transport of goods when they go back to the place of departure. This helps minimize Logistics costs for businesses, increases income for drivers and leads towards sustainable transport development. LOGIVAN develops two platform solutions for goods owners and vehicle owners. Accordingly, the author of the article confirms the quality of this model in developing Logistics services in Vietnam and guide the operation for users via applications on personal mobile devices at the same time. Keywords: Logistics; LOGIVAN; Vietnam. DOI: 10.7176/JESD/10-14-01 Publication date: July 31 st 2020

Original

The world is becoming more and more urbanised by the day. India also is all set to become an urban majority nation by the mid-twenty-first century. Most of India's urbanisation seems unplanned and mismanaged leading to a host of social problems like slum extensions, social exclusions, absence of basic accessibilities with the widespread prevalence of social injustice and the process has been majorly attributed to migrants from rural areas. Post-independence plans exhibit several instances of correcting congestions in India's big cities through the creation of alternate absorption points. With this background in mind, the paper goes on to argue that, the urbanisation of mid-sized cities have proven to be mostly unimpressive, failing to relieve the big cities, thereby generating a top-heavy structure. It further finds, through an extensive content analysis that the Smart City Mission was introduced to rid the Indian cities of its long-pending issues by enabling big cities to accommodate better and most importantly empowering mid-sized cities to emerge as centres of growth. However, following the tradition of a certain kind of project-based urbanisation; the mission appears to have inherited vulnerabilities like hierarchical power structures, inadequate local bodies, the dependence of private players, exploitative market forces and inter-group and inter-spatial conflicts from its predecessors like the JNNURM. Undoubtedly, the intent has been to learn from the past but the basic federal structure of governance, the complex socio-spatial dynamics, the varied stakes and concerned stakeholders causes one to re-think if the mission can entirely be a success and create cities which can globally be identified as smart.

Landscape geometry-based percolation of traffic in several populous cities around the world

In this study, we propose an alternative concept for describing the average traffic congestion in several populous cities around the world, namely landscape percolation. The ratio of the residential area size to road width is a fundamental parameter that controls the traffic congestion. We have compared the model with data extracted from several populous cities around the world (directly from Google Earth images) and demonstrated very consistent results. The criterion for a city landscape that makes a city is considered as congested or less congested has been identified. The model also explains remarkably well the consistency of the measured data with various reports on congestion levels (such as the recognized Tomtom congestion level or Numbeo traffic index) of some populous cities around the world. These findings may help in designing new cities or redesigning the infrastructure of congested cities, for example, for deciding what the maximum size of the residential area is and how width the roads are. This work also shows the similarity of the problem in conducting composite (electric current flow), brine transport between icebergs (fluid flow), and traffic (vehicle flow).